StarCity Recording Hosts Studio Jams, More

StarCity Recording Company, a recording and post-production facility in Bethlehem, Penn., welcomed a flurry of new projects recently, as well as the arrival of a Studer A827 Gold Edition 24-track analog tape machine.

The Studio Jams series documents the gathering of a diverse group of musicians who do not typically work together. The artists assemble and perform in StarCity’s Studio A. After recording the session, StarCity VP of engineering Carl Cadden-James mixes the tracks, relying on the facility’s Solid State Logic XL 9000 K Series console for both elements of the project.

One recent Studio Jams session captured offsite featured Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts with a group of A-list players including Rolling Stones sidemen Chuck Leavell and Tim Ries, guitarist Chuck Loeb and bassist Gerald Veasley. Cadden-James recorded the session in Philadelphia between the Stones’ two dates at the Wachovia Center and mixed at StarCity.

Most sessions, however, are both recorded and mixed at StarCity. Artists, says Cadden-James, typically set up in a circle in Studio A. “I’ve been lucky to work with some really great players in the jazz and rock worlds,” he says. “Artists like [drummer] Anton Fig, G.E. Smith, who for many years was the guitarist and bandleader on Saturday Night Live, and Joe Bonamassa, the great blues guitar player. We just had Terence Blanchard, the Grammy-winning trumpet player. This is an awesome gig!”

The studio also handled post-production work for Loggerheads, an independent film that recently premiered in New York and Los Angeles after a Sundance Film Festival showcase, is earning rave reviews for its warm and touching portrayal of people of diverse backgrounds coming to terms with choices they have made throughout their lives.

Cadden-James performed extensive post-production work in the facility’s Digidesign ProControl-based Studio B, accompanied by film co-producer Zeke Zelker and supervising sound editor Pat Wilson, both of the Independent Dream Machine production company.

“We posted in Pro Tools chasing Beta and DigiBeta cuts of the film,” Cadden-James says. “It’s a dialog picture and we did extensive work on the dialog track to focus it and maintain a sense of continuity. There was a small amount of Foley and a lot of room tone treatment. We laid in all the music. Tim Kirkman, the director, chose to experiment with placement of the soundtrack in search of the best artistic support of picture. In conclusion, we performed the final stem mix and created the deliverable assets.”

In addition, Richard Rome worked on his latest project at StarCity, Rome, a celebrated producer, conductor and arranger for artists such as Lou Rawls, Dionne Warwick, Tony Bennett, Bob Hope, Dusty Springfield and Sammy Davis, is producing, arranging and conducting a collection of ballads performed by recording artist Jane Norman.